While there are some things we can do to help a communications upgrade or new service turn-up go well, we are still mostly at the mercy of the communications providers to do what they say they will do on time.

Let me share with you a recent case study one of our customers experienced this past week. The events are true; only the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
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One of our clients had been planning an office move for months. It is a small office in the Worcester area being relocated to a small suburb outside of Boston. The project manager called me about 6 weeks prior to the move and told us what they were planning. I explained to him the process of getting the phones and data circuit up and running and tested prior to the move so they would experience no downtime. I encouraged him to call his communication provider, which I’ll refer to in this article as None-Comm, which he promptly did.

A smooth, reliable turn-up needs about 4 to 5 weeks to plan and install so there should have been time to get everything in place and tested prior to the move-in date.

The problems started when the vendor missed the original date and did not quickly return calls to advise of a new date. Bear in mind that the office is moving out of their old location so there are lease contracts that have to be held. None-Comm finally called back with a new promise date, a full week past the original date.

The project manager and the Centrend Technician began asking for the technical details of the circuit such as the IP address, so we could get their equipment preconfigured and ready to quickly slide in place when the circuit was finally turned up. It’s now up to None-Comm to provision the equipment.

It wasn’t until the day after the rescheduled date, the very same day our Centrend technician was scheduled to arrive, that None-Comm finally called back and blamed Verizon for not putting the circuit in until late the previous day. Because it was so late in the day, None-Comm did not have a chance to place their equipment yet. Without None-Comm’s equipment in place, the project is at a standstill.
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Communications vendors need to be held accountable for how much their failure to execute a planned installation causes major problems for their customers:

• Our customer is hurt because they can’t move in on time and violate their lease termination agreements.
• The customer potentially experiences down time because their old circuit is still terminated on schedule.
• Centrend’s technician loses a productivity day because of the canceled appointment, and the schedule has to be shifted quickly to fit the equipment configuration back into their schedule without breaking other customer commitments.

Come on providers, get it together and service your customers! If we can find a communication company that can smoothly turn up phone and data services on schedule, I promise you’ll have our loyalty forever!

-Paul
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Paul LaFlamme
President & CEO
Centrend, Inc.
508-347-9550 x115